Ahh, probepart. Thanks, that will come in handy some day._________________Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib

Ok, a little help would be appreciated. It's not essential, what I have works,so I won't start a new post.
Here's what I want. I'm using an Xdialog to show a 'please wait' style of thing. Is there a way I can get the pid of that process so I can kill it (remove the box when I've waited long enough)? The problem is that there could well be other Xdialog's up from other things, so I can't reley on the output of 'pidof'

At the moment I'm using some pretty horrible code and a couple of temp files. It works, but it isn't ellagent.

Dont ask me anything about it, but I hear "fdisk -l" can be used to find partitions.

Would it be possible to make your "wrapper script" take in arguements, Im thinking it would be nice if people could drag and drop files to the desktop shortcut to transfer them through the portal to their windows documents. Quite often certain hardware such as printers dont work in puppy and they would have to reboot into doze to print them. I dont know how this would work internally. It would make the whole process more "transparent".

Quote:

Sorry, progress is a little slow. I didn't get anything done last night. I ended up getting far to drunk instead. Embarassed Still, I wouldn't be a student if I didn't drink too much occasionally!

IMHO good programmers know as much about the people they program for as they do about how to write programs!!! _________________Puppy Linux's Mission

Would it be possible to make your "wrapper script" take in arguements, Im thinking it would be nice if people could drag and drop files to the desktop shortcut to transfer them through the portal to their windows documents. Quite often certain hardware such as printers dont work in puppy and they would have to reboot into doze to print them. I dont know how this would work internally. It would make the whole process more "transparent".

Hmm, yes, that would be good. I haven't done any work on that part ye, I'm concentrating on finding the partions. That's a really nice idea, I'll have a think about that. Thanks.

Quote:

IMHO good programmers know as much about the people they program for as they do about how to write programs!!!

Very true, but IMHO I should at least be able to remember the evening...
Still, I'm making good progress today.

WindowsNT, 2000, and XP
This is the MS Windows directory hierarchy viewed from within puppy:-

This will work...

1. Create a script file in /root - it will have a gearwheel icon

2. Drag a copy to the desktop - it will also have a gearwheel icon

3. name the shortcut to read what you wish it to,
then edit the shortcut to read exactly this
/mnt/hda1/Documents and Settings/administrator/My Documents

do not use file:///mnt/hda1/Documents and Settings/administrator/My Documents - it WILL NOT WORK.

Nor will file:///mnt/hda1/Documents%20and%20Settings/administrator/My%20Documents

4. The gearwheel icon on puppy's desktop will change to a directory (file folder) and the shortcut will work...

Why the &20's? Because they are the unix code for a blank, and you may feel they should be inserted to compensate for the unnecessary MO of Microsoft's file naming system, which came in with Windows95.

That is what some web browsers will return in the url for you (sometimes created in the ftp'ing of page to a server, too) - don't be misled, because a browser is not a direct equivalent to a file manager, although very close most times.

I tried this operation in Windows2000sp4 (same as W2000. In all probability works for XPHome and XP Pro as their file tree is the same), and thought I'd share the results.

We should remember that the majority of home windows users will be using the Administrator login. The justification for this is the flawed argument put forward by those technophobes who have no knowledge of what real systems use... simply that "it's your computer, you are by default the administrator".

I've created three other account links that can be used too, using exactly the same philosophy (with one minor change). You may notice that the Administrator and All Users have been set up and are working; the other two are still "gear wheels" in the capture here...

All Users - by definition, this cannot be used, because this is a combination of start menu links common to all users, and a skeleton for creating new users.

Default User - This one is a possibility, but I've never seen it used.

richard - which is my own login on the windows system on the machine on which I took the captures.

Why hda1 partition is nominated.
Simply, Microsoft assumes one drive, with one partition, containing its operating system (and nobody else's either) and all the private data mixed up as a big salad. They still haven't accepted the idea of separating system and data after all these years.

hda1 is by definition the first (or only) partition on the first (or only) hard drive.

Some method of instructing the new user how to change the addressing of the shortcut to their own directory is needed.

Windows95, 98, and Me
If it is Windows98 or WindowsMe then it is simple. There is only one user. And the My Documents folder is on the desktop. Don't get worried about directories called "All Users" and "Desktop" in the Windows directory, and the "\All Users\Desktop" directory; they aren't for personal storage.

The path is therefore /mnt/hda1/My Documents_________________Have you noticed editing is always needed for the inevitable typos that weren't there when you hit the "post" button?

3. name the shortcut to read what you wish it to,
then edit the shortcut to read exactly this
/mnt/hda1/Documents and Settings/administrator/My Documents

do not use file:///mnt/hda1/Documents and Settings/administrator/My Documents - it WILL NOT WORK.

Nor will file:///mnt/hda1/Documents%20and%20Settings/administrator/My%20Documents

4. The gearwheel icon on puppy's desktop will change to a directory (file folder) and the shortcut will work...

Yes, I think this is how this is going to have to work. I was hoping to have a little more control over the output when mounting the partitions (especially when an ntfs partition is 'dirty'). Sadly I can't see a way to get rox to let me do this.
Tonights agenda:
Finally do some of that heap of physics work (Who knew university could be so hard? )
Look into how to do this directly in the config files. (safely!)
Fix /work around a bug whereby vfat partitions don't mount with the -t auto option (maybe just my machine/installation)

Quote:

I tried this operation in Windows2000sp4 (same as W2000. In all probability works for XPHome and XP Pro as their file tree is the same), and thought I'd share the results.

Should do fine for those two yes. Thanks for the details, they'll make it much, much easier.
One problem we may have is that it is mossible to move the location of 'my documents' to somewhere totally random. I don't see much hope of us ever finding it if that is the case...

Quote:

We should remember that the majority of home windows users will be using the Administrator login. The justification for this is the flawed argument put forward by those technophobes who have no knowledge of what real systems use... simply that "it's your computer, you are by default the administrator".

I've created three other account links that can be used too, using exactly the same philosophy (with one minor change). You may notice that the Administrator and All Users have been set up and are working; the other two are still "gear wheels" in the capture here...
All Users - by definition, this cannot be used, because this is a combination of start menu links common to all users, and a skeleton for creating new users.

Default User - This one is a possibility, but I've never seen it used.

richard - which is my own login on the windows system on the machine on which I took the captures.

My plan is to try and find the 'Users' folder (documents and settings under XP) and list the directories, asking the user to pick their username. I'll filter out 'All users'.

Quote:

[size=18]Why hda1 partition is nominated.
Simply, Microsoft assumes one drive, with one partition, containing its operating system (and nobody else's either) and all the private data mixed up as a big salad. They still haven't accepted the idea of separating system and data after all these years.

hda1 is by definition the first (or only) partition on the first (or only) hard drive.

As cb88 pointed out it's unfortunately not as simple as that. It's also possible to have multiple windows installations. (I think. Surely?) Luckily that's quite easy to scan for.

Quote:

Windows95, 98, and Me
If it is Windows98 or WindowsMe then it is simple. There is only one user. And the My Documents folder is on the desktop. Don't get worried about directories called "All Users" and "Desktop" in the Windows directory, and the "\All Users\Desktop" directory; they aren't for personal storage.

The path is therefore /mnt/hda1/My Documents

Yep, luckily win 9x should be reasonably simple. Just scan for a 'My Documents' folder on the device's root.

Thank you richard.a for the infomation. It's going to be really useful.

windows is not always on hda1 becasue grub may remap the partition to accomodte windows....

so if a nerd somewhere has put windows on hda2 then a script that assumes hda1 will not work....

While true I wonder how likely it is that the type of user whose need we are addressing will have anything but a stock standard install.

People who have proliferations of systems on the same machine would likely have to have some nerd/geek understanding and we cannot or should not need to automate stuff like this for them, I would have thought. They would be better helped via the forum, and probably would expect to be, perhaps?

I run Windows98 and WindowsMe on several computers - mainly for several utilities I find useful (isn't that what a utility is, lol?) plus my train driving simulators (TrainMaster and RailSim which is a DOS one I wrote many track files for), and also on on my test machines with plug-in racks, so I may be able to help if you need testing. I actually used my Athlon rack machine to produce those captures on separate plug-in win2000 and win98 installations.

I no longer have NT3 series, and I suspect that it would be unlikely we would need to consider it because it was a dog of a system that few would not have replaced - imho. Likewise with NT4 although I have an HP image CD with NT4 on it but the only computer I can use it on is this one, which doesn't have removable HDDs, means a pull-it-out-and-change-HDDs scenario which I would rather avoid Saying that, I have a colleague I gave my NT4 software box to, and he might lend it back to me for the exercise

Windows 3.1, yeah I still would be able to do an install to check this out. I have a feeling that there was no such local documents directory. The filenames with gaps came in with the long filenames of NT3 series which Win95 picked up and ran with using a different way of creating/maintaining them.

So 16-bit windows would not be involved in this discussion. Those of us who rejected 95 are those of us, in the main, who would not use the My Documents directory in all probability.

I also have OS/2 Warp 3 and Warp 4 in boxes on my bookshelves. But like Win 3.1/3.11 they would not install to partitions larger than 2Gb. So I suspect they aren't in the equation either.

Just my thoughts. Let me know if you'd like me to do an installation. But OS/2 while a magnificent system, is time consuming to configure once installed.

Richard_________________Have you noticed editing is always needed for the inevitable typos that weren't there when you hit the "post" button?

Hi, I realised that windows worked in mysterious ways, but not quite that mysterious!

There is a possibility I may be able to get 3.03ce included on the cover disks of some widely read windows only magazines aimed at the begginer to intermediate user, this is one reason Im very excited about this feature!

May I make some suggestions about how this script should operate now you have the technical details thrashed out. Puppy, although aimed at "linux newbs" does have its own hardcore following, and I dont think we are going to "win" any friends by having a permanent icon on the desktop to remind people of their past follies! Together with this I dont think we should devote too much desktop real estate to, or have it present when there isnt windows present on the system.

Altogether I think that this system should be aimed at people who are trying linux on their 100% windows p.c. (i.e. just one partition) for the first time.

Ok, so puppy is aimed at people with computers that are of late windows 95 and windows 98 spec, so we should definetely include them, windows 3.1 is so old I dont think we need to cater for them as their hardware will be too old to run puppy. Windows NT, as I understand it is a operating system for networks and servers in business, rather than a home desktop operating system like puppy. Although it is possible to have multiple versions of windows running in different partitions, from what I have seen this is extremely uncommon. Its true to say the vast majority of computers have one big ntfs/fat32 partition with windows as their primary OS. It is these computers we should target with the first version of this wizard, and mop up the reminder with later versions.

The script should

1. Check if the hard disk (hda1) partition is formatted to ntfs or fat during bootup of the livecd version. If so it should place a shortcut to the wizard on the desktop. There is a file somewhere that lists all of the icons on the desktop in Rox (or JWM) and a line could be added to this? The Icon needs to be fairly prominent (near the top of the screen?).

2. When the wizard is run (like any wizard) it should start by giving a description of its purpose:-

Code:

"This wizard will seek out your windows 'my documents' folder(s) and make automatically make icons on the puppy linux desktop for them. You can then open your my documents folder and the files in them just like in Windows.

Click on NEXT to continue"

Step 1 of 3
[Cancel] [Next]

"

On clicking "next" the magic is done! The next screen could/should have (X = tick box):-

Code:

Operating system detected : Windows XP/2000 [or windows ME/98/95]

Users account detected: X John Doe
X Fred Bloggs
X Admin
etc

Please untick any accounts you that you would NOT like to make desktop shortcuts too, and click on OK.

Step 2 of 3
[Cancel] [OK]

This should place shortcuts on the desktop to the correct directories (edit that file that I cant find or remember the name of, which is really annoying me!!!). The wizard window should not cover where these desktop shortcuts are created, so the user gets feedback straight away.

The last screen...

Code:

Complete!

Your desktop shortcuts to your Windows 'My Documents' folders have now been placed on the desktop. You can open click on them to open your folders and view their contents. Click on the files and they will open in the equivalent linux application.

[ok]"

This should get new puppies off to a flying start!!!

The only thing I can think of is, if there is a problem with the ntfs drive being corrupted through windows not being shut down properly (or really heavily fragmented) a message box should come up and say

Code:

"Advisory: There is a small fault how windows has stored your information on the hard disk on this computer. Windows NTFS format becomes corrupt very easily, but this is usually very easy to cure. Likely causes are

1. The last time you ran windows, it crashed or didnt shut down properly.
2. The information on the disk is heavily fragmented.

If windows does still work at all, then its recommended that you run the disk defragmentation utility, and/or shut down the computer properly within windows (Hint: take the cd out and restart your computer!).

If windows wont restart, then your only option is to do a repair in puppy linux. This usually works unless your disk is very heavily corrupted. There is a small risk that you may lose some of your data if this is the case. (for expert users, this uses the "ntfsfix" utility in linux)

As another option, you may be able to open your files in "read-only" mode, which means you will be able to open your files as they already are, but you want be able to save any changes (You could write them to a cd or memory stick though!).

Please choose an option.

[Cancel] [Restart in Windows] [Attempt Repair] [Read Only]
Step 2.a/3

I hope it is clear how I feel this would work best. Quite often users will only try linux when forced into an absolute corner. If puppy can recover their files in an emergency they will be all the more curious to keep on using it!!! I have to deal with a lot of these cases at the drop in centre.

And I notice the way you described me on your page when servage returned control to you My friend that was well worded - it promotes the concept of helping one another (I was a "scouter" for years and understand the principle). You don't need to blow trumpets saying "I'm the greatest" in this line of work, please keep that description there. My surname is immaterial although you probably know that there is an axxxxx-under-lyme after all

And that post you pointed us to. I've added a comment there, hope that was in order. You are doing a great job. And I hope that Jean looks at that page too

Richard_________________Have you noticed editing is always needed for the inevitable typos that weren't there when you hit the "post" button?

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